Author’s Notes: Written for gw_500's challenge #137, which was tie, focus on coffee. Relena and Duo talk reform and break the dishes.

Content and Warnings: slight angst, rated: G

Archive @: Bolt of Tien Mu

Feedback: tienmu@graffiti.net

Disclaimer: This is the equivalent of singing classic rock songs in a school talent show: you obviously don’t own them, you’re not making any money, and your lack of talent may be a painful thing for others to witness.

Last Cup
A Gundam Wing Challenge Fic by Tien Mu

Duo leaned back as far as the office chair would let him and hooked his feet under the edge of the conference table to keep from tipping over backwards. Wufei, standing guard by the door, reflexively frowned.

“All I’m saying is that strengthening those laws won’t do any good in an area like that.”

Relena pressed the back of her hand to her mouth as she yawned. The grandfather clock down the hall chimed twice. Outside, the Earth’s sky was dark, the moon nothing but a sliver of October gold and the winking lights of stars and colonies clear out at her country estate.

“You’ve spent this whole time saying what a problem violent crime has become on L2.”

“And these laws won’t change that.” He tapped the stack of legal documents. “The people who will end up in jail are the ones who steal to feed their families. At best, you lock up the poor bastards who got hooked on the latest drugs.”

“So what would you suggest?”

“Take down the real big shots, major gangs. Then pour everything we’ve got into fixing the place up.”

“Duo, we both know that Lady Une and the Preventers would help, of course. It’s the government backing that we will be fighting for. And I just don’t think-”

“Lena, these are good people. If I could just give them what they need,” he said.

Relena stretched out her hand, resting it on the table as though to touch him. She opened her mouth to speak. Duo dropped forward in his chair recklessly and jumped up. His shoulders hunched and even his braid seemed to flick at the end like the tail of an angry cat.

“I could use some more coffee,” he growled.

A brewer was on the sidebar of the conference room and no one had noticed that it had switched off hours before. Duo picked up the pot and swished the liquid around inside.

“Huh, just enough left for one,” he commented.

Relena would later claim that she was trying to lighten the mood, cheer up her friend and sometime colleague, but at the time, she was feeling a bit punch-drunk from chronic lack of sleep and acute disappointment over the knowledge that even her best efforts would have little chance of getting Duo what he wanted, what the people needed. So she leaned forward in her chair with just a bit of aggression and challenged Duo’s right to the last cup of coffee.

“You know, I might like a bit as well,” she said.

In the corner of the room, Wufei watched with a feeling of ill-ease. Duo poured the coffee into a cheap mug bearing the Preventers’ logo.

“Shouldn’t the host allow the guest to have it?” Duo asked automatically.

“But, Duo,” Relena countered with false sugar in her voice, “I’m doing so much to help you. Don’t you think you owe me even just a small favor?”

Duo squinted at her with blood-shot eyes, speculating. At length, he answered.

“Remind me in the morning and I’ll owe you. For now-”

He raised the mug, saluted Relena vaguely, and brought it to his lips. Relena lunged from her chair, grabbing for his wrist. She jerked with surprising vigor and Duo’s grin was menacing. Wufei managed an aborted noise of protest.

It was a tie, apparently. The mug dropped and shattered between them on the marble floor, which cost more than some houses, and sprayed cold coffee across their feet. Relena’s pumps and stockings looked like they were lapped by waves, like she had taken a very dainty walk through the rising ocean tide. Only the stain was brown and flecks of coffee grounds glittered her sadly instead of sand. In the middle of her conference room, leaning against Duo and with one hand tangled in his braid, Relena cried until she laughed and Wufei escorted her to her room with a nod to Duo that he would have called compassionate.